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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/25700203">how sweet and lovely thou dost made the pride</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/fairmanor/pseuds/fairmanor'>fairmanor</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Schitt's Creek</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Acting, Alcohol Usage, College Patrick, F/M, Gen, Implied/Referenced Homophobia, Internalized Homophobia, M/M, Queer awakening, Questioning Sexuality, Shakespeare, Theatre Kid Patrick, University</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-08-04</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-08-04</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-05 08:20:33</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>2,321</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/25700203</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/fairmanor/pseuds/fairmanor</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>College is a time where Patrick is still stuck knee-deep in the throes of his old life and expectations. But with his theatre friends, he feels like a whole different person.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Patrick Brewer/David Rose, Patrick Brewer/Rachel</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>4</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>35</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>how sweet and lovely thou dost made the pride</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>- TW for using alcohol to avoid bad thoughts.</p><p>- This is a very personal fic for me. It was partially inspired by Patrick’s extensive Shakespeare credits on that resume photo, but mostly inspired by my own experiences acting Shakespeare and the queer culture that is often interlinked with Shakespeare in young social scenes. From personal experience, I find it unlikely for Patrick to have been immersed in one without at least being introduced to the other.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>There were a few things that Patrick knew.</p><p>Firstly, it was a Tuesday. Tuesday, the second of May.</p><p>It was exactly one o’clock in the morning.</p><p>It was 2007. <em>The year of our Lord, 2007,</em> Eddie Mannick would say, because he always said that before he said the year.</p><p>He was striding in front of the group now, a dark bottle of wine swinging from one hand and a tricorn hat in the other. He was still wearing his ruffled white shirt, gashed with Polonius’s scars. Eddie Mannick was the kind of person who strode. His legs were long enough for it. He read enough Oscar Wilde and Dostoevsky for it. It was just pretentious enough.</p><p>Another thing Patrick knew is that wherever Eddie led them, they would follow. More correctly, <em>Patrick </em>would follow. The rest of the cast of Hamlet, still feeding off the buzz of their final show night, seemed to be paired off into lovedrunk twos or giddy threes as they crossed the large green expanse of the West Canthor campus after Eddie’s raucousness had got them kicked out of the student’s bar.</p><p>Patrick walked, alone but content, a few yards behind Eddie. Discomfort and maybe a little bit of daring was what made him take off his character shoes just before they reached the green. He curled the thin grass and soil beneath his toes and breathed in deep the air, warm and smooth as plain bathwater.</p><p>‘Are you alright there, Patrick?’</p><p>Patrick was startled out of his gentle reverie by the rich euphony of Eddie’s voice. His tall co-actor turned around in a single swoop and started walking backwards, head tilted to the side as he waited for the answer.</p><p>‘I’m fine,’ Patrick said, because it was true.</p><p>Eddie smiled. He turned out a palm, offering Patrick to walk alongside him. Patrick picked up his pace and fell into step beside Eddie (which was difficult, given that Eddie stood at six foot five and could probably run leisurely laps around the college soccer team if he didn’t find the idea preposterous).</p><p>‘Thought I should make sure, since you’re always ever so quiet,’ Eddie said.</p><p>Patrick huffed out a small laugh. It bloomed out in front of him in a cloud of mist. The temperature was dropping. He stuffed the hand not holding his shoes into his pocket.</p><p>‘Yeah, I get that a lot. I really am fine, though.’</p><p>Eddie seemed to note the sudden coolness of the air as well. He did a full-body shiver and wrapped his arm around Patrick’s, rubbing up and down it hard as if to warm him up.</p><p>That was another thing Patrick knew, though it wasn’t something he’d just noticed. Eddie was one of those people to whom physical affection was as natural and easy as breathing. He laid back into the arms of the world, feeding hungrily on any connection he could. Patrick had seen him kiss his friends on the lips in greeting and sit for hours with people in his lap merely as a way to catch up on conversation.</p><p>‘Oh, it’s Eddie Mannick! Ayyyy! Hahaaaa!’</p><p>Eddie rolled his eyes and stuck his finger up at the stumbling band of sports-clad boys on the other side of the grass. They laughed once more before they dispersed.</p><p>‘They do make fun of me, don’t they?’ Eddie said cheerily. ‘They always make fun of me.’</p><p>Patrick forced another laugh. He hoped the sudden expulsion of air from his lungs would somehow do something to tamp down on his rabbiting heart. Those students, whoever they were, had just seen him enclosed in the generous embrace of Eddie Mannick, perhaps the only person Patrick knew to be openly gay outside the confines of theatre after-parties and late night kitchen confessions.</p><p>
  <em>They were drunk. They were going home.</em>
</p><p>Why did he care so much? It was okay. He had a girlfriend. Facebook said so.</p><p>
  <em>They were drunk. You could be drunk too.</em>
</p><p>Patrick swiped the half-full bottle of wine from the hand that Eddie had resting at Patrick’s shoulder and took a long, greedy gulp. They were good enough friends that neither thought anything of it.</p><p>Then he took another gulp, and another, until suddenly they’d crossed the campus without his immediate recollection. Eddie let go of his shoulders and unlocked the door of the small, cozy campus café with a key he’d probably got cut for himself in the first week of the semester.</p><p>It was a creaky old thing, like the rest of the university. Though closed, the café was warm; all hard wood built into stone, all exposed black pipes and an open fireplace that felt a little ahead of its time in its cozy-chic charm.</p><p>Eddie led them into an upstairs room that Patrick had never seen before. He spared a little consideration for the time of night and the trouble they’d be in if they were caught, only to immediately do away with the idea. He reminded himself that Rachel was in bed and most of his friends were away at a student conference across the province.</p><p>
  <em>Why does that matter? They’re not your gatekeepers.</em>
</p><p>Eddie settled himself into the largest chair of the room, a blue velvet chaise lounge, hooking his long, long legs over the edge of it. Some others curled in on themselves in the armchairs or fluffed up cushions on the floor. They were making that joke again, the one Patrick didn’t get. Some inside joke about sitting in chairs.</p><p>He took another swig of wine, not entirely sure why he needed Dutch courage to ask the question, and said, ‘Okay, what does that actually mean? The thing about chairs?’</p><p>Most of the group laughed good-naturedly. It was the same laugh they’d shared last term at the Othello wrap party where someone had called Patrick their “token hetero”, whatever that meant.</p><p>‘So gay we can’t sit straight,’ two of Patrick’s friends said in unison.</p><p>Patrick nodded politely, knowing that was the end of the conversation. The fact that most, if not all, of the group were queer was not a topic he often liked to broach in case he said something out of turn or ignorant. Thankfully, they rarely brought it up with Patrick either. He hoped they didn’t think him dull.</p><p>
  <em>Why? Is there a part of you that’s meant to be less interesting? Like you’re in comparison to something?</em>
</p><p>Another swig of wine, then downing the full cup that had just been passed to him, got rid of the questions nicely for the next half hour as the group chatted about their performance and what they were planning on doing next term.</p><p>That was when Eddie launched himself up from the chair and stalked across the small coffee room towards the bookshelf that served as the far wall. He selected a dusty, curling thing from the shelves, hard and leather. He thumbed the pages and blew away the dust, then lit the gnarled candle on the small table by his chair.</p><p>‘It’s time, my friends,’ he said in a low voice.</p><p>‘Wait – what? What’s happening?’ Patrick said to his friend Adriana, who was sat beside him on a beanbag.</p><p>‘Ah, you weren’t there for the last one,’ Adriana said. ‘A couple of weeks ago, some of us got high and watched <em>Dead Poet’s Society </em>then decided to have our own version where we read a piece of poetry that means something to us. We’ll read originals, too.’</p><p>Patrick nodded. He wasn’t jealous that he’d somehow fallen out of the loop of this particular group activity; he had other hobbies, too, after all. He had people to see and people to date. He had to do other things. He had to.</p><p>‘Do you want to read anything?’ Adriana said.</p><p>‘Oh – no, thanks. I haven’t prepared anything.’</p><p>‘Suit yourself.’</p><p>Even if Patrick had something, he would still feel a little apprehension at reading it out in front of everyone – or performing it, as Katherine Summers seemed to be doing now, reciting John’s English lament from Richard II apparently off by heart.</p><p>
  <em>‘This royal throne of kings, this scepter’d isle,</em>
</p><p>
  <em>This earth of majesty, this seat of Mars,</em>
</p><p>
  <em>This other Eden, demi-paradise…’</em>
</p><p>Performing in front of people was one thing, even if he had to pull the most ridiculous faces and say things that he still couldn’t make head nor tail of after months of rehearsal. It was different here. As though he was still pretending to be that person. He found that he couldn’t quite launch himself as fully into the spirit and aesthetic of it like the rest of the group, though he didn’t know why. Reading poetry here would be baring himself too flatly, too nakedly. It wasn’t the person that other people knew.</p><p>
  <em>But coming here is like a break, isn’t it?</em>
</p><p>That was the thing about this group, these people. None of the eyes on him were really looking. He could say and do anything he wanted, even if he needed a lot of rich drink to loosen his mouth up. He liked it that way; the way everything they did felt like it was in defiance of…<em>something</em>. Even if it was just to douse the things they had done last week in port and read poetry by the burning flames of it. He admired them. He admired Eddie, especially. Eddie was very tall. He had soft hair.</p><p>Eddie was reading now. He was stood up, a bent knee resting on the armchair, an elbow on his thigh. His book of sonnets balanced in the fingertips of his right hand. Like a true thespian.</p><p>
  <em>How sweet and lovely dost thou make the shame</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Which, like a canker in the fragrant rose,</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Doth spot the beauty of thy budding name!</em>
</p><p>
  <em>O! in what sweets dost thou thy sins enclose.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>That tongue that tells the story of thy days,</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Making lascivious comments on thy sport,</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Cannot dispraise, but in a kind of praise;</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Naming thy name blesses an ill report.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>O! what a mansion have those vices got</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Which for their habitation chose out thee,</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Where beauty’s veil doth cover every blot</em>
</p><p>
  <em>And all things turns to fair that eyes can see!</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Take heed, dear heart, of this large privilege;</em>
</p><p>
  <em>The hardest knife ill-used doth lose his edge.</em>
</p><p>It was of love, Patrick thought. Such were the nature of sonnets. But he wasn’t thinking about Rachel. He was thinking about nothing. Thanks – and that was a big, grateful thanks – to the wine, he couldn’t feel his face.</p><p>Patrick let himself slip, ever so slightly, down the beanbag. It moulded to his pliable form, cushioning him from the old wood of the floor. He tipped his head back. Adriana smiled at him.</p><p>Words like that were traded all night; poems of blessings and beauty, songs of praise and pain. The room was crowded with a heady throb of love and drunkenness and a very specific and misunderstood intellect that Patrick hadn’t known existed in his age group until he came to college.</p><p>
  <em>What is it about them? You could be drawn to anyone, anyone on this campus. Why them?</em>
</p><p>They said the strangest things sometimes.</p><p>Like, ‘I think humanity will regret that we stopped building castles.’</p><p>‘I am so painfully aware of my own existence.’</p><p>‘I will face God and walk backwards into hell.’</p><p>
  <em>‘A woman’s face with Nature’s own hand painted</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Hast thou, the master-mistress of my passion;</em>
</p><p>
  <em>A woman’s gentle heart, but not acquainted</em>
</p><p>
  <em>With shifting change, as is false women’s fashion;</em>
</p><p>
  <em>An eye more bright than theirs, less false in rolling,</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Gilding the object whereupon it gazeth;</em>
</p><p>
  <em>A man in hue, all hues in his controlling,</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Which steals men’s eyes and women’s souls amazeth.’</em>
</p><p>It was a strange litany of code, Patrick understood. Something he hadn’t quite the courage to sink his fingers into. If only he knew exactly what <em>it </em>was, this language, this love language only accessible once one was drunk on wine and slurring poetry.</p><p>Sometimes Patrick would say things too. Or perhaps he just thought them. Thought them in a room where he could think things like that.</p><p>
  <em>See, look. Look at this sonnet. Look at this prose. Shakespeare literally writes to the beat of your heart. Is that why Eddie pounds his chest in time to the words?</em>
</p><p><em>Probably, </em>Adriana laughed<em>.</em></p><p>
  <em>And see, Adriana, that’s why you use fluctuations in the rhythm to track your character’s emotional state. Any irregularities in the scansion are like the character’s heart stuttering. Jumping.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Only you could make Shakespeare sound mathematical, Patrick.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>No, no, it’s true! That’s why when characters share the rhythm – like we did tonight when you were – you were Hamlet and I was – </em>
</p><p>
  <em>Yorick, yes.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Y-yorick. Those characters share an extraordinarily intimate connection. Sh-shakespeare, he…fucking, he writes viscerally, he is literally in your body, and that, my friend, that is why the best actors don’t posture and fling themselves about. You have to be fucking alive and passionate and electric – it can’t be all clever, in the end, it has to be about the connection and the swearing, cheering, jeering masses you’re performing to, but Shakespeare only reaches those heights if you’re grounded in the earth. He has to be in your body. He has to be in your body.</em>
</p><p>Adriana’s face was blurred and swaying beneath the blanket of alcohol Patrick had consumed.</p><p>
  <em>You say the best shit when you’re drunk, Patrick. It’s like you’re not yourself.</em>
</p><p>What it was about Shakespeare that made him feel so alive, so free, Patrick thought he might spend the rest of his life working out. You have to get him in your bones, breathe him in, stomp and rage and pine, da-dum, da-dum, da-dum. It is literally to the beat of the heart.</p><p>No matter what Adriana said, Patrick very much felt like himself. If only it were able to come home with him tonight.</p>
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